KCSD Board of Education Meeting 5/8/24

001it is 7:10 we have returned from executive session to the public session of the regular board meeting for May 8th if we could please call the role Miss F show here Mr Ryder here Dr Collins here Dr jacobitz here miss Anderson here Mr Spicer here miss La here miss Jordan here Mr Sanders beler is excused if we could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stand one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all we have uh two resolutions coming out of executive session Boe 56 and approval of a settlement agreement be a resolve that the board hereby approves a settlement agreement in the matter of a student with a disability number 05824 dated May 2nd 2024 and

002be it further resolve that the superintendent of schools is hereby authorized to sign such agreement on the district's behalf second all in favor any opposed so that motion carries our second resolution Boe 57 be it result that the superintendent is hereby authorized to direct a comprehensive medical examination and evaluation including psychiatric Andor psychological examination and evaluation if necessary of employee number 824 in accordance with the provisions of section 913 of the education law and be a further resolved that the board hereby directs that employee number 824 submit their medical records if any to the extent and for the time is determined by the examining Physicians to the board designated examining phys at or before such examination or evaluation second all in favor with and that any opposed that resolution passes as well um our next

003order of business is approval of minutes we have minutes from the April 16th board meeting if we could have a a motion in a second second any discussion on the minutes from April 16th all in favor of accepting those minutes any opposed those minutes are approved we reached the public comment section of our meeting um we do have a couple of people signed up so good evening everyone we are about to enter the portion of the meeting where we welcome public comments although state law does not require that we hold a public comment period we feel it is crucial that we hear from our community about their concerns the board is here to listen because we do take your concerns seriously we want to have time to process and research issues your concerns and questions

004may be addressed at a future meeting of the board or you may be contacted by the appropriate staff member or administrator if you have prepared a written statement and do not have an opportunity to present it please leave it with the clerk of the board who will see that all trustees receive it please note that state and federal privacy laws and collective bargaining agreements prevent us from discussing certain Topics in in this venue the guidelines are posted on the boardroom wall thank you for your respectful adherence to the rules and your interest in the continuous Improvement of our district BR Riley my name is baa Riley I'm a District parent when I've learned that my school's performance had significantly dropped in recent years I stepped up to ser on my school's building leadership team while

005there I saw that parent voices were not being properly incorporated into critical decisions being made at my school since then many of us parents across schools throughout the district have discovered that our whole district has been out of compliance with section 10.11 of New York state state educational code for over 30 years and that is no small part of why we feel left out the state this state mandate requires each District to draft a plan for administrators to share decision making with us the taxpaying families who pay for this District's operations as well as receiving its services the board recognized that it must come into compliance with and create a shared decision-making plan in November as I like to call it it's a constitution for our school district that was November of this school year

006it took many rounds of Correction for the district to finally follow the procedure outl outlined in the law but finally in February PTO heads got scan information and were told to select representatives for their schools to be part of this drafting committee many of us held votes and I was elected as my school's representative for the drafting of this plan nine parents were selected from 11 schools and we have been meeting once a week since then we were told that from February to May would be the period during which this critical activity was going to be taking place here we are at the end of that period and this meeting still has not been called to order we have not even received a response from the administration nor the board to our emails asking about

007scheduling this meeting we're also at the end of the school year and the end of the year planning that we're supposed to be writing the the rules for is going forward and much of it is happening without proper parent participation yet again some of my fellow parents on this represent representatives are even going to be aging out of their kids schools so this is starting to really become a mess um this lack of response is whether intentional or not and I'm sure it's not intentional but it's sending a message to the taxpaying families of this District that the board and the administration are not willing to share decision making with those of us who send our kids into the schools and are paying the bills we really ask that you please give attention to this

008important matter and move forward with it now for the kids that are in our schools now thank you thank you that's all that signed up is there anyone else in the audience that would like to address the board school district and I have to with the of I know people watch this on YouTube and the I'm not happy withis change County Transit my granddaughter was on a first stud bus for the last two years put on kind Transit when I talked to her she told me she has two boys and a man a girl driver she doesn't know the same driver day was her first afteron does know I just felt that when this was brought to the attention of the budget because I the budget how they we for a student with money wise

009I just feel it needs to be brought out and it needs to pack space to look at this it's not fair you're jeopardizing children Lives who know their bus drivers every day to somebody they don't even know who doesn't even live in this area my daughter's bus driver it comes from either wal or wers that's not a local bus driver that's not a local so it just needs to be more the attention of the school board and the people that are watching this on YouTube that they need to look at the budget before they approve thank you thank you any other comments District parent I have kids in three different schools within the district um I know that this has been a big issue ever since it came out that Orange County Transit was awarded

010the contract for next year um we were told rumors going around that did came in actually $2 million higher than what per student offered and while there were some issues last year with um having you know overcrowded buses are having to do double runs her student was getting it done they're familiar with the kids they were doing all the runs not just partial runs um which has been suggested this year that if Orange County Transit is taking over that they're not even going to do all of the runs that first student was doing and costing us more money um as a taxpayer I find that very offensive that we woulding bring in a new company that's not within our district where our taxpayers money is not going and staying within our district for our kids

011but being shopped out to Orange County um and our kids have had these same bus drivers for years as the last person said they're familiar I know that my bus driver unless I let him know that my son can get off the bus without a parent or a sibling being there will not let him off the bus they're concerned for the safety of our kids and given the circumstances with the short of of of drivers this year I think still did one heck of a job covering and taking over and I don't think that the cost that it's going to raise the taxpayers for Orange County to come in and take over these runs not again not even all the runs according to what I've been told is just unfathomable that's that's going to put

012a huge burden on the taxpayers and again for the YouTubers I encourage everybody to take a look at what's in this budget before they vote on the 21st thank you thank you any other public comment that brings us to the superintendent report Tak we will start the students uh superintend Report with our student data report and our teaching and learning team and I'll hand it over to Dr Al introductions and presentation good evening I would like to start off with introducing my team so right here we have Dr Laura Sean she is our assistant director of secondary Humanities next to her we have Sarah Holbrook she is our assistant director of Elementary Humanities and then next to Sarah we have Latina khil harston and she is our assistant director of um Math Science and Technology

013at the secondary level and then we have Jenny gribbon who is our assistant director of elementary math science and technology as well as overseas all of our enl departments so they will be back up here in just a few moments so we just want to thank you for this opportunity to go through our growth data uh for IR ready as well as what is going um what we're doing in the classrooms in response to the data as well as being proactive to the data and then we'll conclude with some curriculum instruction assessment and communication initiatives so I just want to remind everybody that this is the first year of the implementation of I ready and just also as a reminder that I ready is a couple of different things right we have the diagnostic which

014replaced our star diagnostic that we used to have for about 25 years um we moved into I ready uh for a number of reasons but the main reason was there is a curriculum tied directly to the diagnostic so then we are able to really drill down on deficiencies and better assist our students with the curriculum to back up any of those deficiencies so I do want to start off with learning where my pointer is that's not it I think it's on top there we go found it so I do want to start off with just familiarizing yourselves with the new data reports um that consist of our I ready data so if we're looking at this always on the rightand corner we always see what um area of content we're dealing with and then if

015you're looking at the green this is our at or above grade level our yellows are one grade level below and then our Reds are are below grade level I do want to point out something very important that is different in I ready um and you are a lot of you are are very used to the star data I already represents data based on the end of the year okay not as we're going so as we're moving through the year students should be moving you know if they are in the red moving into the yellow and hopefully into the green okay so I do want to point out that I feel that this was an important slide to show it really gives us a better understanding of where we were preco um and where we where

016the national Norms from I ready took place in 2018 and 2019 and where we stand in relation to where we are now against New York State schools as well as where we are in comparison with our district to our national Norms as well as our New York State data so when we look at first our preco versus this is our preo area versus the current New York State data okay we are New York State comprised of 529 districts using I plus New York City um that comprised of 3,143 schools in their in their data and we can see that when we look at pre-co data versus New York State districts we are about 12% Less on grade level and 11% more students that are below grade level and when we're moving into our preco national

017data and we're comparing that to our district data we are 21% less than our preco data and 16 % less students on our below grade level and then finally which I think is the most important comparison here is where we are right now our winter 2023 data all in New York state compared to our own District we are 9% less of students at grade level and then we take a look at our below grade level were 5% less than the the New York um districts so this slide is specifically just our data from fall to winter and our growth this does not include kindergarten kindergarten does not take the Diagnostic in the fall due to acclimating to school uh so you can see that if we're looking at our at oops if we're looking at

018our we're looking at our on grade level in the fall we can see that we have grown and we've grown about 9% and we've also decreased our number of students in the below grade level uh by 133% when we take a look at drilling down down into our grades 1 through four data we can see a significant increase in our change from our at or above grade level in grades two right here with a 14% increase and grades four with also a 14% increase and we also see a significant decrease in grades one with a 20% decrease in our below grade level as well as grade three with also a 21 with a 21% decrease we are seeing some um excellent growth here we move into grades 5 through eight we are not seeing the

019the gains that we saw in grades 1 through four we are we are still seeing some gains they are smaller gains um for a few reasons grade eight I will point out that they um some of our students are taking algebra and they are not included in this data set our grades five and six will be fully implementing I ready as their curriculum starting in September and seven and8 uh Latina will be talking a little bit about that in a moment uh we're looking at some adjustments of that of the implementation and including um some additional PD it's very important to understand the difference in growth when we're talking about I ready data so the typical growth that is discussed in a lot of our data is really the expected growth to to reach at

020grade level by the end of the Academic Year okay stretch growth is very important so stretch growth is was designed for students that are one or more grade levels below and if they continued at the typical growth rate they would never get back on Braid level so I already designs a a different um a a more rigorous but attainable growth score for these students to be able to catch up in a multi-year approach so if students reach their stretch growth two years in a row they will typically get back on grade level so brief example we have Alex here right Alex scored um two grade levels below Alex has a typical growth score of 27 compared to Bianca who came in at early on grade level has a lower typical growth score Alex to get

021closer to being on grade level that first year has a stretch growth of 43 and in comparison to Bianca only has a 34 um goal so you can see the difference where Alex has um a more rigorous uh approach but attainable we talk about growth halfway through the year now this is back in January halfway um to meeting our typical growth we had 48% students already reaching that and then we had 23% of our students already meeting their typical growth and our stretch growth that harder goal to reach halfway through the year um we had 35% and then 5% already reaching that uh stretch so very important in the classrooms our teachers are really taking their time to talk to their students designing um indep individual um plans for their students to reach their goals

022and it's really important for the students to understand why they take this diagnostic what is coming out of it what their deficiencies are what they're doing great on and what we we call them grows and glows right so it's important that they understand um sorry this was um our instructional coach doing a co-led lesson with um their teacher on how to read a diagnostic Report with students and I'm just going to show you a brief little [Music] video it says progress to annual typical grow if something happens anually how often does it happen iate iate School ISP you have AAL student next is tomorrow the first day of summer break no it is not so we are not at the end of the year the middle of the this to at you see a fraction

023I'm going to blow up my fraction expl what it means your fraction will be mine because you have [Music] atom IET my and the top of the fraction manys in my model student at this point in the I have five of the point so I do want to give a shout out to jacn man she is one of our instructional coaches at the middle level um for humanities and I was very proud um to see that she was also teaching math so I also want to um just go over a recap of the February Parent Academy that was back in uh February 20th at Miller we had 35 parents attend um this event and this event was discussing why the change in I ready as well as how to read the parent reports um what

024is I ready as well as uh we walk through a data chat with our parents using um their student data just like we do in the classroom with our students and I am going to hand it over to Jenny Gman hi everyone so the response to the data for the elementary this is our first year that elementary and the entire District are using the I ready math curriculum and taking the math and the reading I already Diagnostics it ties directly into the math curriculum finally we have one that we take the diagnostic it works with the curriculum that's the same company the same drill skills and it puts the students on a my path which is lessons that are appropriate to where their skills are are based on the diagnostic that they've taken the teachers

025can utilize a prerequisite report that would help with getting the skills in order and order to meet the grade level standards and they can drill down in each domain and group the students for a small group or what's known as tier 2 instruction for next year we plan to have mandatory minutes for the my path instruction at the elementary level we already have done that this year at the secondary level for the enl subgroup we're trying to offer more supports and we're having an easier time now that we have a curriculum that ties directly to our diagnostic so the first year enl students meaning the first year that they're in our district in our country struggled to even pass the practice round of the I of the uh star diagnostic so we got no scores

026no information that we could utilize now with the I ready diagnostic it will give the students what's known as a direct to my path based on that diagnostic so it puts them on lessons that are directly tied to the skills that they have at that level wherever it meets them it's adaptive to that while both the star and the I ready offered the math Diagnostic in Spanish um I Ready's my path can also be in Spanish so it's the lessons beyond the diagnostic and we can do that for Math and for reading for the first year entering enl students so slightly different meaning that they're at the lowest level of the English proficiency typically again our first year in this country students they are exempt from the Diagnostics however we have had teacher support and

027even student support at the middle level who are offering a separate window for the students just in that particular group to take the diagnostic because the teachers and even again at the upper level students felt that they could be set on the right and appropriate my path based on the diagnostic versus trying to guess or to put at a lower grade level beginning with the winter Administration oh as I said that we opened a separate uh window for them and we're going to do that again in May and June as we take the next round of Diagnostics so we'll hopefully have some more comparative data that way and then I'm going to pass it on to Latina thank you Jenny hello everyone um so in addition to the amazing plans that uh Jenny just uh

028discussed with us we also have some great plans for math at the middle school levels and I'm excited to um discuss that with you today um so when we were talking about plans for math at the middle school we thought it was really important to focus on all things already ready um and that's because that's where we're ping the data from right this is the platform in which our students are taking the diagnostic test and so it was important for us to kind of utilize all the resources that I already has to offer um because we want to make sure that there's alignment right for our students and consistency with the uh diagnostic test that they're taking so when we look at all things I ready uh the first thing we're going to be doing

029is doing a full roll out of the I ready curriculum right we think you curriculum is amazing it's very inquiry based and so we're going to be doing a full roll out with five and six um with grade seven and eight um they already did the roll out of the curriculum but we're going to provide additional support and professional development for these teachers um to help with the implementation process and so just like Jenny talked about we're also going to be making sure that our students have the opportunity to complete these my path lessons right um it's not enough for them to just do it at home we want to provide the opportunity for them in the classrooms and so when we're looking at scheduling we're going to give this opportunity to students during lab

030extension periods in our Quest periods so in five six they're going to be doing it in labs and then in grade seven and eight they're going to be doing it in quest and so of course it's not enough to tell our uh teachers hey make sure the students are completing these my path in these periods we also have to create a formal structure for our students and for our teachers to make sure that there's alignment in consistency right when going do these my lessons so this way teacher a is not doing one thing in class and teacher B is doing a different thing in class right make sure all on the same that our students are getting equable access to these myath lessons so of course it's not enough also to tell our teachers to

031hey make sure you're doing this in these lab periods and these Quest we also have to set goals and make sure that we have a set amount of myath lessons we think that is appropriate for our students to um complete by the end of the year and so we want to set these goals with the teachers with our students um and then we want to conduct full checkin to the teachers to support and ensure that our goals are being met so keeping them accountable for comp less and then in addition to that I already also has a toolbox which again is just a plethora of additional resources um that we can use that has multimedia content supports assessment practice reading discourse data um and so we're going to use this toolbox um as additional support

032for our teachers so all things I already we love the platform but we also know that we can have the most amazing curriculum and platform and that's not the end not enough so we're also going to be focusing on instructional practices right because it's not enough to just hand a curriculum we also have to make sure that the way we're delivering it and implementing it in the classroom is effective so we're going to be focusing on instructional practices with our teachers and also with our administrators and to do that we're going to be focusing on the CRS framework so the culturally responsive sustaining education framework um and so Kathy STI and I our director of DP doing a lot of work around this already we've started doing presentations with some of our departments and department

033meetings and so here is some of that data from that from those meetings and the first thing we wanted to do was first Define what the CRS means because we think it's important as a district that we're aligned with the language that we're using what this looks like in the classroom and so you're going to notice here that in the presentation we ask a few teachers what do you think CRS looks like in math and science and I'm just going to give you kind of read the responses here in the pre reflection sorry so you're going to notice in the pre- reflection you see a lot of language around diverse cultures right ethnicities um identity cultures backgrounds language you're going to see that a lot and so we thought that that was interesting right that

034as a department um the department that we did this with that we're kind of like seeing these like well CRS must mean that we have to talk about culture backgrounds in the classroom um and while that's great we also wanted to let the the teachers know that instructional practices are also a great way to promote that CRS and responding to students and so we talked to them about how all instruction is culturally responsive but the question is to whose culture is it responding to and that's a great quote from Z him if he does a lot of CRS work you know and she's telling us that look we don't need to really talk about cultures to be culturally responsive but we want to make sure that instructional practices are providing the different entry points to

035respond to every student so maybe one student responds really well to direct instruction but then we need Student discourse then we need small group and we need writing and Ma and so we want to make instructional practices are responsive to every student in the classroom and so once we talked about that and they kind of got that idea we gave them a post reflection question and we said what do you think CRS looks like now in math and science and I'll give you a minute to read the post reflection as well so I hope that you're seeing the shift here right a lot of that culture identity is not there anymore and although we know that that's great work and we need to be talking about that it's more Focus focused on best practices right

036student centered instruction and I really love this last quote where it says I really do a lot of CRS in my classroom but after this presentation it makes me wonder doing enough and I really appreciate that honest reflection and that honest feedback from our folks so in addition to aligning our common language around what the CRS looks like as a district and making sure we're all on the same page for our students um we talked about well what are some of the instructional practices that we want to implement and so we got feedback from our teachers and we listed some of them here and you can see that they're really interested in learning about this and this is going to kind of be the theme for department meeting next year when we do PDS with

037them so we're going to do PDS on productive struggle student discourse real time data what does that look like to collect data in real time to inform instruction in real time and a lot of folks are curious about that and so we're really excited to implement some of these instructional practices based on what the teachers needs are um and then of course if you look at the least interest we see it's vocabulary um and that tells us a lot because we know I have done a lot of uh research on region exams in the um uh High School level and we see that a lot of the reasons why a lot of the students aren't reaching those high scores is because of vocabulary on these exams um and so we thought it was interesting if

038that was the least interest but we're going to be doing a lot of work with my team on the science of reading and making sure that we discussed the importance of reading in all thiss right um and so we're excited to do that work and then lastly of course it's not enough to just say hey go and um implement this in your classroom we want to visit each other's classroom so we're going to be doing a lot of lesson studies and interv visitations where we're going to go in we're going to see the implementation of these instructional practices come back we're going to talk about it together what worked what didn't work so that it feels like collaborative work for everybody all right and then lastly we're going to be focusing on tier three okay

039and it's important to focus on all of the tiers really want to restructure our math RTI right what we're noticing is that math RTI looks different in different classrooms and we really want to promote that consistency and Alignment amount among all tiers for our teachers and with that we want to make sure that tier three is very data driven so we're going to be creating a Data Tracking protocol so that the teachers are using this to drive their instruction and not only the teachers are using it but our students are going to be tracking their own learning much like the data check that they're doing they're going to know what a standard is not just the teachers right like we're the ones who are looking through the standards the students are going to know what

040the standard is and they're going to track their learning to see hey maybe I really did know how to solve those equations right but by three months I feel very confident in that they're going to track that so I'm really excited about the pl we have for Math and I'm going to thank you Latina so moving into our reading data um again in comparison uh with pre-o data uh our national Norms again I am going to just for sake of time just jump a little into this um a little bit quicker than I did with math um but in comparison with our preo to our district data okay so I'm just going to highlight this and then comparison into our own data and we're seeing um we're about 20% less um students reaching that um

041onor above grade level and we are about 5% more um at the below grade level and that is in comparison to preco so we are still rebounding uh from that time and then I also want to just highlight in comparison to New York schools um and this is also winter data of this year comparing to our district our winter data um we're not too far off from all other New York schools we're about 12% less um on Braid level and we are uh let's see we're really close to we're about 2% um less below grade level so we're getting there um we have a lot of work to do ahead of us um but I am feeling very confident that we will get there moving into our comparison of fall or winter data U we

042see that we have a growth of 10% moving from on grade level from fall to winter and we have a decrease in our students below grade level of 8% drilling [Music] down by grade level in grades 1 through four we are seeing growth in every single grade level um with significant G gains in grade one and grade two right and we are also seeing significant decrease in below grade level in grade two we are seeing some significant gains there moving into grades 5 through eight our movement isn't as um great in the upper grades however we are using our data um to really drill down into specific domains that I already presents to us in our data and we are seeing that we are going to be targeting our instructions like you heard before in

043vocabulary it was identified in I ready um data as well and as well as our comprehension data and then our growth so we are seeing that halfway through the year we had 24% of our students reaching their halfway through their typical growth 35% already meeting that and then our stretch goals um we had 32% halfway to meeting their stretch goal and 133% already meeting that now all of this is all numbers and then what are we going to do about it so we start with we started with our principles uh last month New York State came out with um seven literacy briefs that you all now have a packet um for your nightly reading to really dive deep into these literacy briefs and what they me um so our PD that we did last month

044with our principles was going through each of these briefs and you know brief number one really is the science of reading what is it and just a brief um explanation or definition is really just a body of research includes 50 plus years of interdisciplinary research that features principles and practices for research-based instructional design and opportun for all students to learn uh brief number two goes into what science of reading is not and the one thing I want to highlight is it is not a curriculum and it is not just one instructional practice okay and I'm going to hand it over to Sarah to do a brief explanation of briek three how how's everybody thank you okay so as Ela was saying these came out in January so the writing so reading is like breathing in

045and writing is like breathing out when we think about it so we're embeding writing into the content areas I'm going to talk more about that when I get into the elementary levels um so gr four is the science of reading uh pre so pre is where it all starts uh it's learning the language learning being familiar with the language hearing stand that's where language comprehension comes in and language vocabulary which is what we need in order to um get comprehend reading comprehension later on and then uh I'll talk a little bit more about the elementary years and pass it off to Laura at the end okay so um breef number five focuses on the elementary years so the science of reading although it impacts all levels of the development the big heavy lift is really

046in the elementary school and the reason for that is because of the two main focuses in Elementary reading instructions the first is that they need to be able to crack the code so they need to be able to take what they know about their language and and then apply this kind of abstract thing that we've created in letters to it um so they're not relearning like some a new code they're attaching something new to the language that they already have so we focus in the primary years there really on breaking that code so that they can access the text later on so you probably an expression that you've heard is that in third grade um we go from learning to read to reading to learn because by about second grade we should see these by

047the end of second grade we really should really see these foundational T skills really intact um and that the students can now focus on the next part which is learning how to understand what it is that they're reading and learning new things and one of the biggest um really important instructional practices that create those connections in the brain is explicit systematic instruction of language but also for when we move into um attention is this cumulative knowledge building I'm knowledge building um way of teaching reading and what I mean by that is that you'll often hear teachers say like we're working on main idea and the children were able to figure out the main idea of this passage and then you know on Thursday we did this passage and they weren't able to figure out the

048main idea so then we work on Main Idea um so skills like that don't transfer knowled is what trans so instead of the issue being a main idea issue the issue was probably a background knowledge issue so what a student brings to the text the knowledge that a student brings already to the text access like velcro in order to um learn from that text and then it becomes this kind of like cycle where you learn something new and now you have new background knowledge and you can learn something else so we're going to be kind of changing the way that we teach reading and that we're going to be teaching Concepts deeply and embedding the reading and skills within them so the children have the knowledge that they need in order to really practice in

049and hone in on those skills in order to move forward um so that you know they can get on with all the really great stuff that comes when you're a fluent reader All right so what is this mean for us um and with the word reading at that early level we've already implemented an explicit systematic phonic program in grades K Group three so that's foundations so I point out um oh okay so that in fourth grade um like I said earlier that word reading should really be intact by second and third grade so in fourth grade there is no fourth grade foundations program because of that so what we did is we know our kids are still struggling in those areas we used a diagnostic to see that um they diagnostic aines to these phonic

050skills and the teachers are going in and you know addressing those specific deficit areas to fill those gaps and move the kids forward and they my also lines up with that the other um piece that you'll see coming in next year is that that phological awareness or phonic awareness which is the ability to hear sounds well to notice sounds in your language and be able to blend segment and manipulate them and that's a foundational skill before we can attach letters to it we have to be able to do that so A lot of times I'll hear teachers say like we're working on the phonics it's not working it's not sticking and the reason for that is usually um because there's a phological deficit that they can't do it in language we have to do what's

051natural first so we do it in language first before we attach letters to it um so that's going to help kind of teaching to prevent instead of teaching to remediate at the end so we're going to frontload that in kindergarten first and second grade uh what's really important is um not just these programs they're great but it's the knowledge of the teacher behind the program driving the instruction forward that really makes a difference so this is new to a lot of teachers especially that that cumulative knowledge building piece that I was talking about so we're going to be doing a lot of teacher training and what that looks like and the science of reading which attaches to that we're also going to bring in new assessments to help progress monitor as we move between the

052tiers when we know kids are making adequate progress or if we need to intensify or leave the instruction the way it is um and we're also looking at some new like knowledge building curriculums that we can use to help really embed these reading and writing skills within um what the students are learning on a daily basis good evening um I'm here to talk to you about what reading looks like for uh Bailey and Miller Middle School uh we started this about 2 years years ago we had many of our teachers that piloted a program they were extremely excited about what the I Diagnostic and then the pathway uh tied in with the curriculum were starting to do for our students and they started sharing it with their colleagues their colleagues became very excited and and

053they started jumping in even though they weren't part of the pilot and so a lot of discussion started to happen about best practices in Reading already in the middle school before we even introduced the diagnostic to all of our students so this year was the first year that we did have the diagnostic um introduced to all five through eight students um the students enjoyed the diagnostic the teachers for the first time were starting to understand we're getting more information about where our students are um also starting to really be able to drill down what's happening um when they leave fourth grade and are coming to fifth grade and don't always have those foundational skills that we want them to have as Sarah had said earlier because they are reading to learn uh by the time

054that they hit fifth grade and our a lot of our students were struggling with that process so um one of the things that we zoned in on is that many of our middle school students were struggling with bonics uh and they had not gotten any of that Foundation foundations training that was going on in the elementary school so we were able to uh find a program uh that was connected to I it is a phonic program is it is research based um and um the I ready diagnostic actually gives us a report uh that we can use to see what students 5 through eight are still struggling with phonic and with that we took the report working with the building principles we were able to group students who still needed that phonics training and so

055you'll see at grades five and six we were able to offer tier two intervention and the intervention uh was provided by either one of our reading teachers uh one of our enl teachers or one of our special education teachers because our building principles really wanted all handson deck so um the number of students that we had were able to be accommodated by those special Area Teachers um what we found um by the winter time is that the number of students that were identified by this report had gone down substantially so what you'll see is that in the fall we had our enl teachers and our special ed teachers who were delivering the program alongside our reading teachers by the winter time the number had shrunk so that all of the students could be transferred over

056to the reading teacher um and then we could have the enl and special ed teacher Focus back on the skills that they needed uh for the IEPs or for um the uh accommodations that the ANL students needed at that particular time period grade seven and eight um also we have students that needed phonics but seven and eight much smaller number those students were accommodated also in a tier 2 situation um and this time it was either uh their reading teacher or if they were in uh a self-contained situation it was their special ed teacher um and all of the phonics is is aligned to the students particular def deficit area it's a three book program it's not computer-based the students love it they get to open up a book they get to write in the

057book um and then they graduate into the next book and so they they're eating it up uh students go to through two to three lessons a week and we're finding it to be very successful our hope is that by the spring uh that number is going to be even less and we're very excited because the fourth grade is coming with us and we're hoping that next year's fifth grade is also going to be a very small number as we're Shoring up their fic um we also have students that have been identified with the pathway uh and this is an opportunity for students to specifically work on their skill areas that need work um in five and six because they do have that reading lab and we've talked about the reading lab or reading extension depending

058on which Middle School you're talking about um and the teachers give about 20 minutes um every other day for the students to work on their specific skills and still have the opportunity to rotate through the other stations um and are still also doing doinga work so the the uh fifth and sixth graders are working very hard to improve their reading they're very excited about the data checks they have things posted on the board they're moving dots all over the place and and they're very very uh excited about the work that they're they're making uh in um reading seventh and eighth grade a little bit more difficult and you know a lot of it is because now we're working on a secondary schedule so students uh don't have that reading opportunity like the fifth and sixth

059grade teacher students only have English class so uh teachers are making use of the pathway but they probably only do it like on Fridays um to give the students an opportunity to again focus on where their areas um need to be improved uh and then many of our students use it in quest uh but a lot of our upper level students who are taking advanced math Advanced science are in music don't have a quest um many of those students also have the opportunity to complete their lessons uh for homework we really try to have it done in school so that they have the guidance of the teacher but some of the students um are able to do it at home one thing you need to remember is this this is k through eight program so

060we do have students in the sixth grade who are testing out of the program um so in sixth grade when they're above grade level they're in eighth grade they're in ninth grade I already we don't have options for them so this is giving the opportunity for the teachers to focus on those High L readers and create their own program um for them to keep them challenged and and moving forward uh so um this is what's going on as far as the diagnostic is concerned and the pathway um some other things which are happening and have been happening over the last two years um we have curriculum alignment which is going on um so we have the merging of the I curriculum um to support the existing Ela curriculum 5 through eight and then the social

061stud grad 5 through six um a lot of that is because the fifth and sixth grade English teachers are also the social studies teachers so one thing that the students are seeing is I'm learning about astronauts in science and oh my gosh I'm in reading class and I'm reading about this case so that's that background knowledge that they're learning something in one place that's helping support them in another class they're learning about the Mayan culture and social studies and they go to reading class and there's and there's a lesson about the May culture supporting each other and building that background information and what's exciting is the students are noticing it hey we just learned about this in science that's right and then they can start to talk about everything that they learned in science that's

062supporting the article that they're doing in reading right so before they would say oh this is English class what does this have to do with science class what does this have but now they're starting to make those connections for themselves which is what we want um we also have uh teachers piloting lessons to improve them and get them into the time frame that we have we are also using department meetings and common planning time um at both of the buildings to share best practices which is something Latina had mentioned um was going to be happening in the um math and science department and then we also have the teacher training which is going on so far a deep dive into uh the literacy briefs has happened for 5 through eight Ela uh it has also

063happened for 7 and eight social studies and actually just today it happened with this uh World language teachers at middle school ironically they were not really excited about the brief on secondary level they were most excited about the brief for the prek and the elementary because they're teaching Spanish one and that's really where their students are even though they're seventh and eighth grade they really are at that you know primary um school um as far as learning uh a new language um literacy six is specifically about the secondary level the focus is on purpose driven integration of information across the content areas I mentioned that before what they're learning in science they're learning in social studies they seeing those connections um developing strong oral and written communication skills uh and really building on vocabulary building

064on reading comprehension building on that U background knowledge um so that they can grasp abstract Concepts because what we want our students to do is to be able to be abstract thinkers and be able to articulate their opinion uh this is an awful lot of information and I know you have this in your packet just putting uh pulling out some big things is applying print concepts to digital text and you'll uh know in the research there's a an awful lot of discussion going on about how students learn reading from a book how they learn reading on the computer which is better um how should we divide our attention giving time and all of those things the are very interested in having content-rich text and that's where the English Department the social studies Department World Language

065department is making that culturally responsive connections how are we having our students still welcome in the classroom um and uh a lot of text Rich discussions that are happening and at this time I'd like to turn it back over to Dr Al thank you Laura this is our last part of our presentation and this is about increasing communication of all of our initiatives in curriculum and instruction um recently recently we had a visit from Flory from I ready um during our curriculum carbs and conversation we have monthly at our seven elementary schools um this is just an opportunity for teachers to to talk to um District admin on ad and on concerns on questions it's really just an open conversation we bring um cookies to fruit because fruit is also a carb okay and then

066we also developed the curriculum Council this year and the focus this year is really on where we're going in our literacy instruction it took in all voices of uh teachers in grades K through five we made sure that we were bridging over into the middle school um and also we incorporated um enl special special ed educators reading literacy reading uh library media specialist otpt and we really just wanted everybody's voice in this curriculum Council and this group uh meet has met uh three times so far we have one more meeting this year and then we will be continuing this Council um as we move through the years in all different content areas we also created a parent Academy this year um I talked about the February uh I ready meeting we already had in April

067uh co-presented with Sarah on the literacy briefs to parents and and what the science of reading is and then we will be um doing a screening of the right to read coming up that date is to be determined uh and then finally we will have our last Parent Academy uh June 13th at the high school at 6:00 and that will focus on increasing student engagement um in learning by embedding educational technology into our instruction as well as how to support um children at home during the summer I just want to say I have an amazing team and I hope you um enjoyed our presentation tonight we really enjoyed being here and um I'm very lucky to have such a wonderful team any questions Dr Collins uh thank you so much to all of you that

068was amazing and I know it was long but I do also want to say that I appreciate all of the um Extended information and the emphasis on sort of forward looking and what's happening I um especially at just midterm time of the year with this data set right at the end of the year we'll probably look more exhaustively at all the breakdowns of the data but it seems this moment sort of looking forward to all the ways in which we're making changes seems really appropriate and a few of the things I just wanted to highlight that I'm really excited about to hear um or hear more about was I really appreciate that you're serving teachers during the PD and finding out what they think before and after and during I think having everybody on board

069is really important to moving all the district forward and um integrating just so intentionally the I ready with um the CRS framework such that it's a lens through which reviewing everything I think is the way to move forward as well that's really exciting and I'm thrilled to hear that um and also the focus on transitions is great I heard a lot about the3 support and the the grade four to five and recognizing that we've often seen a drop in our data about that time um and so I'm hopeful that we can look forward and see some real Improvement our both our reading and our math by addressing those transitions just really explicitly so just a lot of great stuff and I appreciate the time and thorough you presented all of you thank you very much

070thank you thank you uh Mr Spicer first I want to thank you all for this comprehensive presentation sharing with us the details about District's use of diag diagnostic data and the research based inter to close the years of learning loss so thank you for that and your whole team just it's a wonderful presentation but also the the work behind it all is just phenomenal and the total implementation of the science of Education just just profound thank you um two two more issues one is the disaggregated Baseline I ready data for the elll children show that 45% of them are three grade levels behind in reading and 36% three years behind in math that means these children are in third grade uh but are at the math and reading levels of first graders your slide describing

071enl subgroup supports providing significant interventions to close this Gap so thank thank you for that just automatically attacking it and then lastly seen for culturally responsive instruction is important because it adds relevance and motivation to our teachers lessons but as was revealed in the post reflection without best practices we kind of spitting our wheels so it's clear we have to do everything all and all at once so thank you for that and again thank you for wonderful presentation very much very much appreciate not gonna say much um I just I I want to the sentiment is the same so I don't want to reiterate that um in my head I just kept thinking about all the dots that being connecting and how incredible it seems connect but I think the other part for me is

072the amount of enthusiasm and engagement from one your team that's just kind of being disseminated all across the district and it sounds like stud enjoying what they're doing sometimes I think we wored a lot about like resistance and not being tovee but it sounds like those are not really large barriers as much anymore maybe kind of likeed out as it there's a lot of enthusi Engagement from from everyone on this which is really thank you other comments or questions thank you very much for your team I was I'm very impressed with the balance of Diagnostics with instruction because without the instruction you're not going to see any change in the Diagnostics so thank you very much District updates just a few District updates so I'll keep it short um just keep your eyes in for

073senior events the infographic will be out soon to everyone that would be up on our website you know all the dates of our our upcoming senior events obviously most of you went many of you several of you went to MayDay that was kind of like the first senior event of the year but we're we're got a couple weeks before the next big one start so we're putting we putting out this week and the biggest senior event all obviously is graduation um and so we are continuing to plan U Mr brard do you want to give a update where we are a place a lot of myself dror Mr Parker is now involved we are getting chairs we were able to secure 3500 chairs it's going to be very how detailed want that's detail so it's

074going to be very similar to a general admission at like a back so there will be sections that where I know the board has concerns about fire exit so there will be areas that will be set up in clums of chairs of about 300 um there will be General additions to those every family will get six tickets but the event is not limited so you can bring as many as you want outside of that area but all the seniors will get six tickets which we get them into the area where we will provide six regular folding shares for people um that will be done the rehearsal will be 9:00 everything will be set up um Dyan has done a great job of measuring everything um we' met with Miss tickle from Crosby it be the

075staging area for the students very similar to how the staging area um was at ba the students would come down the board once again will meet um the procession right at the end of Crosby like they used to at the old pav so everything's moving along everything be marked really well also working on our our um Mass Gathering permit and getting a parking spot um either at the Northeast Center or I park87 and ging a shuttle bus we also will have a handicap parking section using for those the map and everything else be going out soon so for those families that have more than six the setup will they be able to bring lawn chair chair Mar the goal is to have the stage if you come out of Crosby you look West to have

076the stage on the auxiliary lacrosse and then the main seing area will be where the band camp performs but we will leave the hill and everything else open everybody who wants to bring seats for sit on the hill but there will be an area that will be C on off for the procession to come down through the crowd very simar as they exit thata will be the hill want to bring their own chair or just on the hill and graduation rehearsal is you said n morning that Friday okay but you can't do on um just a few facilities updates I know we have facilities committee coming up next week but um you know we're moving along with the playgrounds obviously we're not where we want to be um several are complete some are semi complete

077so we've got a lot of work that still needs to be done bits and pieces mostly done um so we're we're plugging along um we're hoping that this next few weeks and and sometime over the summer we'll complete that project finally um but we're we're getting closer every week um deep Stadium I think nothing's really changed this last time we've spoken we we're we're still on time on budget we are going to have some delays in the in the uh locker rooms and rest rooms but the the turp and the track and the stands so they're going to be still set ready to go for the end of August and feel pretty confident about that with the progress the reing uh spoke to the mayor this morning um they we would like to set up

078another tour for the board if you would be interested since we feel like there's been a great deal of progress since you went last in what was it March or February so we really like you see that but I we'll talk about that so we'll still be able to use the field in August yeah so even though the bathrooms won't be open or the locker rooms won't be open will be will we provide other facilities for that yeah so we can we if we need to use locker rooms which in many sports we don't um we can use the Anda pool locker rooms okay during the fall and we're going to we're just going to bring our our portable bathrooms from Miller we have the trailer bathrooms yes the nice ones the nice bathrooms yes

079we're just going to trailer them over to to beach for that time period that we don't have rest'll be functional over there and we'll be able to use it yes and we'll our you know our games our practices all over there okay and parking lots will all be done parking lots will be done really by the time we get to August the real issue is going to be the lock rooms and the bathrooms maybe not strength though it might not be strength it might not be strength but it'll be paid okay and and what about scheduling are we setting up a new system for how a schedule or like are we yes so um actually Mr Reinhardt Mr Silverstein and uh the the interim Parks and Rec director who was the old Parks and Rec

080director and the mayor met a couple weeks ago so they're working out the Kinks on how they can cooperate and use a get a little more modern and how we um manage the scheduling and that will be communicated then to sports and to band and to anyone who needs to be able to use that space for month okay um good news on our 2023 bond issue um phase one documents have been approved and phase two documents are go going in very soon so we are really excited to see that the state has moved forward and and we are ready to now kind of regroup and decide how we're going to move forward as far as the bidding process is concerned so we are we're we were happy with the turnaround State ad but again um

081Mr quadrini will be here meeting after this one to give you a more in-depth conversation on that um we in the on the agenda tonight you have a resolution to approve our um geothermal testing at Chambers so this one one of the things we talked about as part of this project was we would look to do something different um as far as having um renewable energy geothermal seem to be the thing to to do and we identified the school that was most likely to be not most like was really one of our only buildings that was able to to to provide that s of Bo Chambers so we're going to drill a few um test Wells I guess Wells are what they're calling them see um how it would if we if it's really really

082um feasible for us there but so that's you have that in your agenda for tonight too I I don't know if a question is more appropriate then or now but since you raised it I mean that was a fairly large contract I'm assuming that that contract does much more than drill Wells yeah that contract I mean test yeah that would be for all of the work that Casp would do if if the if the wells are sustainable design okay yeah um also you have you have a resolution to look at an Athletics field master plan this is something we talked about last year when we started looking at not having beats and how can we better use the facilities and the fields that we have um we did a nice job working with our consultant

083taking care of the fields we have but are we doing are we really utilizing them the best way possible most efficient way possible and you know also looking at does does you know some other synthetic surfaces in our district are not something we need to look at as well so they're going to give us kind of a a a pretty broad um report and many different options for us to think about but uh we talked about doing this maybe 10 years ago and we we never did it now we really regret it so going to get this done and lastly we are starting our lead testing in our in our schools so we're targeting the end of next week so we'll be testing a little our our schools for drinking water for lead and of

084I think we've talked about over the last couple months I want to make sure give an update on that and that is all I have for now U Mr Ryder um can you I I know myself and Miss La have received complaints on on some of the referee situations throughout the district can you just kind of explain like who sets up referees and and clarify like that we have just cancelled like certain girl Sports over certain boy Sports on the same day sure and I again work closely with Mr Reinhardt and Mr Silverstein when these things happen um you know one of the issues is there is a shortage of of officials in all sports you know fall winter spring um also we are we are kind of an outlier in our in our Sports

085division where most of our most of the contests are taking part and taking place closer to County that they are really to olster County and to Kingston so so there's fewer for us to pick from uh and and we don't assign our return our referees we go through B's they assign all the referees for all oia so so we kind of we work with them but when there's shortages there's shortages um you know in the past a lot of officials would double up on games so JB and varsity would be they would stay for both games so you wouldn't have that kind of problem less and less of that happening you know last few years um another I think one of the questions not only officials but other people question asking some questions about the

086fields why are we playing the varsity baseball game you know but the JB baseball game is canceled that's a legitimate question you know I think one of the things we are we taking significantly better care of our Varsity Fields by Design you know it was intentional um some of the other fields that were playing on like for example our JB field we play in a city park um we don't really we didn't really we don't take care of that field we line it and we'll rake it and those kind of things but as far as you know getting into it and making sure the drainage is right and all those things not like we do a gruner um that game for example there was we did offer a double header to the team that we

087were playing say let's go JB Varsity but they didn't want to do that obviously that that does put your teams together in one bus probably till 9 10:00 at night and I understand that but we are trying to find solutions to problems when we have field issues around weather um and around officials but we have we have had a lot of problems with officials I can't deny that we're doing everything we can we're talking to everybody we can trying to make sure we can keep things and and the other things make up games that we've missed you know we're not missing a lot of JB Varsity games boys or girls we're missing a lot of JB games we missing a lot of modified games or having modified games where you have coaches doing some of

088the the officiating um we don't want that but we're we're struggling in some areas we're going to keep pushing trying to do better Dr Collins um I was wondering if you might just be able to address the question around the meeting that would involve the share decision making yep we're ready to go obviously um we we are a little pined happens this time of year sometimes for us but uh Dr Williams Dr Bell and Mr Reinhardt are ready to go we just talked about it two days ago we were actually scheduled to meet tomorrow to set set dates and times to have a couple meetings before we get into you know mid June so have information up by the end of this week beginning or next okay any you going to communicate that information well

089first we're going to communicate with the with the 10 parents and the Seven other volunteers from from um bargaining units and and such that will be in that and then we'll just minut it more widely yeah thank you welcome Mrs Jordan I wondered since there were a couple of people who had concerns about Transportation if you could expain little bit of um the issues around your busing um or would that not be that wouldn't be okay at this time okay but maybe a future we could get an update yeah correct can I ask I I thought that we were looking at like having an outside consultant do some sort of study on our transportation system it's it's going is that happening right now okay do we have an idea of the turnaround on that it

090actually it should be any day now I I check in with Miss boy and M car about it and is there a portion of that that is at all considering bringing transportation in house is that any is that part of the scope that the consultant is looking at they're going to they're supposed to lay out several different options okay thank you any other questions for the superintendent that moves us into the Board of Education committee reports we have teaching and learning Dr Collins teaching and learning Focus tonight it was very focused um thank you I think I can I'll try to minimize the overlap the meeting um the presentation tonight so um we met on April 22nd and approved me minutes from November 6th and February 5th meetings and introduced and welcomed to the committee

091many of the new administrators on our staff and also um two teachers Matt grber and Bruce cup um first thing on our agenda was Dr aletto presenting the data from iro wi Diagnostics most of which or much of which we saw this evening so I'm not going to um reiterate those data but um the I thought I'd just highlight some of the discussion around those data after they were presented within the committee um we discussed as was presented tonight attending to support and um the support and interventions for older students who are not on grade level in middle school but are transitioning into High School have continue to support their students um the continued need to recognize and address the demographic dist differences um in the percentage of students that are reading and doing math

092at grade level we still see more of our black and latinx students performing grade level and um we want to be cognizant of ways to address that we also discussed the relationship between reading ability with stamina and ability to comprehend content across subject areas as students age again they addressed some of that in the presentation um and as a consequence we discuss offering professional development on the science of reading at grade levels higher than K24 CLE um we then got an update on the honors and just a reminder that um we're now allow students to self- select into nth grade honors Ela and social studies so we were just getting a bit of an update on how that's been going and what will happen next year um so this year there were seven additional sections

093of honors classes and one integrated section for both Ela and Global so self- selection will expand to grade 10 English and social study texure so those students can move forward and new students can self- select in at grade 10 level um we looked at some data in the spirit of detecting whether grads differed among demographic like academic grads um differed among the demographic subgroups but sample sizes were small so most of what we discussed around that was the observation that both the diversity and the number of students that are enrolling in the honors classes is higher this year than ever before um the plan is to begin to track better movement in and out of honors classes um and how that's broken down by subgroups to that we're actually meeting the goal of increasing the

094diversity of our students that are enrolled in those classes um surveys were given to teachers uh to Garner some feedback and some adjustments will be made to the honor program in the next year so just a couple of examples um students May self- select into honors courses but they need to have passed their Ela and SS courses the previous year um acknowledgement form should be signed by students parents and school school counselors so everyone is on same gauge about um enrolling in a course um there's some talk uh they're adjusting the deadline for opting into and out of um the honors courses and a summer recommendation list will be provided to students who want to prepare for honors level work and so they can be given that before summer break I think is great um

095and then finally we talked about how ensuring that IEP students who are enrolled in these courses have the appropriate supports in place through annual IEP meetings scheduled for before September number if necessary to make sure they're equipped to move through the class um we talked last about the communication of curriculum enhancement some of which was presented tonight um is happening at multiple levels so between central Administration and schools by way of um the administrative teams going to elementary schools for conversations and apparently dressing up in outfits um so conversations around implementation um and any concern so opening up a dialogue with teachers making sure they have a stay and how the curriculum is being um sort of spun out formation of a curriculum Council that's comprised of teachers from grades K through five enl special

096education speech and reading so they're focusing on literacy instruction supporting the transition to middle school and identifying curriculum materials that might be out of date um and then there's Outreach to parents through the parent Academy which we've heard about so our next meting will be May 13th which is coming Monday next Monday at 9:30 thank you questions for Dr Collins thank you very much lot of tnl tonight good thing good stuff that brings us to our consent agenda are there any board members that would like any items pulled from the consent agenda hearing none can we have a motion to accept the consent agenda any discussion all in favor of accepting the consent agenda any opposed so the consent agenda is passed we do have several donations and Rose is not here here Jen I

097think you might have the donation um you got the job okay so um for donation for the Board of Education Rose I hope you I do the Board of Education and ksas City School District hereby accepts a grateful appreciation of the following generous donations to harriel Edson school um family two books valued at $24 I survive the great fire andon night Chambers Elementary School from the chambers PTA a donation of nine books in the school library to the Kingston High School from connect kids field trip Grant two Grant awards for 9,520 field trips to s's Point Ina and a second for $2,480 Elementary School from connect kids Grant a grant Award of $1,680 the kingst city school district athletics department from Red Hook Central School District a donation surplus of wrestling M and to Kingston

098City School District from family given by the Susie ra Foundation a donation of shoes sneakers backpacks and socks valued at 2775 thank you to all of those donation thank you that brings us to Old business any old business uh Dr Jacob I just wanted to remind us actually to put the board's evaluation on the calendar so I know that um M was talking about waiting obviously until after the election was Prett critic up until then but maybe we can do something early June that's what I was kind of hoping for early June so can we um Mrs S can we kind of send something out and see if we can identify date this is to go over it or this is to don't we receive it yeah we'll get it ahead of time I think

099if we could establish a date then we'll distribute the um the goals the self evaluation and um then come together to just assess how we performed great it is my preference that it' be done done in June because it was kind of odd having new board come in and so I know last year was a little off but having it done by June was unfortunately May and June are not great for finding time but if we could kind of make it a priority I think that would be I I think it's going to be in the best interest of the board and how we function especially moving forward so and I I apologize I was here we're not here few of us last meeting um and I try to catch up but the old business

100in terms of um the Li on Kingston folks that here and I don't or we're still we're still working on May little bit about today um so I we're pushing for for ball um so we do have funding that we can allocate so we're so we're just trying to get our partners on board but we are pushing from Fall thank any other old business that brings us to new business any items for new business brings us to our second public comment Mrs Bowers welcome I just wanted to say how good that presentation was tonight on the data was really informative and exciting to see the initiatives and one in particular that I as a parent really appreciate is the parent PD I loved seeing those words in the same line because it's something that I

101had always hoped more of when I had children in the district because you know I thought I was a smart person until maybe they were all in third grade and you know suddenly was above my understanding of math and science and all kinds of things so I think that's a really important addition to um what was a really good presentation thank you for it thank you than you any other comments from the public that brings us to board member announcements starting with Mrs Jordan we we'll go around the table I had the pleasure with some other people here to attend the moving uh the MayDay ceremony and it was my last kindergarten class that was graduated and um it was a pleasure to see some of them all grown up but it was also such

102a wonderful tribute to the students of this class that are graduating and their families and parents and support people for every part of it the music was astounding um the performances were astounding the speeches were very inspired and inspiring and I just thought they did themselves proud and the high schol did it so I wanted to thank everybody involved in that thank you I agree Mrs La okay so I'd like to read something after 10 years of service I have made the decision not to seek re-election to the Kingston Board of Education it's been an honor to serve the many dedicated Educators administrators and staff who tirelessly work to shape the future of our community I was honored to meet many of our students over the years and I wish them success in their futures

103while not always easy my time on the board has often been rewarding visiting our schools witness witnessing our children in the classroom that was a big one uh what happened there uh and seeing the passion of our teachers and teaching assistance has truly been a special part of this journey your dedication to our students growth and success inspires me I know that it's getting more challenging each year and I thank you for your hard work and commitment to our children thank you for all of you that trusted me with your vote please know that I listened I fought hard for change I took this role seriously and always did my very best I appreciate the conversations and Outreach the construct constructive feedback and guidance and the support from so many of you thank you one

104of the most cherished moments of my time on the board was having a special opportunity to present my grandson with his diploma at the Kingston High School graduation a proud moment I will be back in two years to present my granddaughter her Kingson high school diploma that is such an honor and a special time thank you for all your votes your support collaboration and commitment to improving our district while my time on the board may be ending my passion for education and our community remains I wish everyone the best of luck in the future there's still a lot to be done I have something else at the end of my career after 34 years in a variety of different roles for the Kingston City School District District I decided I could make a difference as

105a lifelong resident of Kingston and former employee I ran again again again and again and and have served for the last decade my life has revolved around the Board of Education that is an understatement in my 10 years of service I missed only two board meetings but I'm not bragging uh vacation parties appointments personal responsibilities and were scheduled around the board and committees and functions to the community sometimes in the midst of past personal frustration we forget that the public servant of our district serve out of the goodness of their hearts with the aim to make a difference they are someone's Mom Dad grandparents I took my role very personally I've gotten publicly criticized complaints name calling yelled at in forums stopped in stores Etc people have posted some really unkind things on social media

106don't forget that we are people too working to do our best giving of personal time and that families are reading these P posts also we I would like to thank my daughters my son-in-laws and my grandchildren for putting up with my life on the board for the past 10 years now I am really retiring instead of complaining I encourage everyone to get out and vote this year every year or better yet run for your run for the office instead of criticizing jump in and work to improve our district thank you thank you Mrs L not only for your service but for your appropriate comments thank you Mr Spicer and before I make my two comments I also wanted to add my thanks to miss La for uh for everything she's done for the boy but

107also as a new board president when I was um we we had some changes in chairmanship so I asked M La would you please be chair of the ating finance committee you ask that and she was very kind she was very kind to me and took that over and and the committee very well you don't remember that conversation no I do because you said said yes so thank you I probably wasn't hearing V so uh and um and even though um Miss Jordan just said almost everything I'm about to say I'm going to say it anyway this past Friday this past Friday a few of us board members attended the high school mating program for everyone who may not know the event is a celebration of our senior student leaders and an honorary passing of

108the leadership Torch from the seniors to the Juniors to the sophomores and to the incoming freshman the speeches the musical performances and the singers filled that room with so much joy and love that's why Miss Jordan said what she said as well great mind s alike I was so swelled with pride for all of our teachers administrators parents and anyone having anything to do with these wonderful young people I want to thank our young people for the love and support they expressed for each other and provided me with so much hope for the world to come when they take over just a wonderful event and and our our children are beautiful they are beautiful and then Saturday May 27th I stopped in on our diversity hiring fair I want to thank the administration Dr patalino

109and also miss Armstrong for all of their efforts in reaching out to candidates of color and moving us closer to our goals of diversity equity and inclusion and as we we the board have discussed uh in private increasing diversity in employment is really challenging and you have to really go out of your way to make these changes happen and and they take a long time so I want to thank the whole board in public for all of your work in in this in this journey and and I I said I said we began this we're going to try and we're going to fail we're going to regroup and we're going to start again and Dr patalino and Miss um Armstrong and their whole team have been examplers of that to keep moving forward so thank

110thank you all just just well done thank you thank you Mr Spicer M fitgerald I just want to Circle back this and I just want to say I didn't do it too I know I just I didn't get the chance to say it I wish I had said it before so I didn't get you know st's message I want to hold that up and give it its proper space but I would like to say as a new board member I don't think I really realized the amount contribution or who you are because you're a little bit more quiet more reserved suzan l in my head um so I'm I I have to say it's I I was were disappoint I not disappointed you do I think you've given so much but I have gained such

111an appreciation for you and things that you do and and I'm like oh I thinka you know like she's very logical and she kind of fits in that line of data nerds or you know people that they get research um and I just want to to ex that thanks to you and and my level of appreciation as a new board member for watching you function the way that you do I think that was very important and I loved hearing the background which I didn't a lot of people don't any other board I do have a couple of announcements first of all this is teacher appreciation week so um I would want all of our teachers to know that this board appreciates what they do day in and day out for our children and I know

112most schools do something to recognize teachers but um it's it's so important that our teachers know that we value the work that they do it's also School nurses I don't know if it's day or week I today School nurses week starts so to our nurses whether they're in the school or not we appreciate your work as well so and my last announcement is just a reminder of the budget we don't have a meeting I don't think before the the the budget so May 21st we really count on public support to get our budget passed so that we can do the good work that we saw tonight it's it's critical that we um that the community come out and vote and support the work that we do so thank you um and no other announcements we

113could have a motion to adjourn thank you very much three more meetings